Mainstream movies are getting darker and more violent. And as Quentin Tarantino's latest project, Grindhouse, demonstrates, the worst of the violence is often directed at women. Kira Cochrane on the rise of 'torture porn'.

Next month Tarantino and Rodriguez pay tribute to the low budget, fleapit cinema experience in their double bill, Grindhouse. John Patterson recalls how the sticky-floored filmhouses of his youth gave him an education.